{"id":399000,"date":"2026-04-26T21:57:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T21:57:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/399000\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T21:57:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T21:57:10","slug":"quantum-leap-tests-its-limits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/399000\/","title":{"rendered":"Quantum Leap tests its limits"},"content":{"rendered":"

This subscriber exclusive is available to all readers for a limited time\u2014if you want to keep leaping with Zack Handlen when TV Club Classic returns later this week, become a member today<\/a>!<\/p>\n

\u201cPlay It Again, Seymour\u201d
Originally aired 5\/17\/1989
In which Sam has to [insert mangled Humphrey Bogart quote here]\u2026<\/p>\n

It seems like the perfect setup for a TV show, right? You\u2019ve got a cool, high-concept premise\u00a0 that allows for considerable flexibility in terms of time period, cast, and setting; you\u2019ve got a core relationship that\u2019s both funny and heartfelt; and you\u2019ve got a charismatic leading man who\u2019s game for pretty much anything. There\u2019s novelty, wonder, and even a dash of mysticism. One could hardly ask for more from this era of television.<\/p>\n

And yet, here we are at the end of the first season, and you can already feel the writers straining for novelty. It\u2019s not just that Sam jumps into a private detective in New York in the early 1950s. It\u2019s not just that he finds himself holding a gun over the body of a man he\u2019ll soon learn was his partner. It\u2019s not even enough that Sam remembers some of the story he\u2019s living in thanks to a pulp novel he read in his pre-time travel past. He\u2019s also jumped into a guy with an uncanny resemblance to Humphrey Bogart, in case any of the references were unclear.<\/p>\n

There is a certain amount of fun to be had here, provided you don\u2019t mind more than the usual share of corn. The writers have a lot of fun confusing Sam with supposedly current \u201950s slang, but regardless of whether or not that slang is legitimate, the gag sounds awkward and forced from the start. It doesn\u2019t help that the movie a good chunk of the episode appears to be referencing, the John Ford version of The Maltese Falcon starring Bogie, was released in 1941.\u00a0<\/p>\n

To be fair, femme fatales, gumshoes, and corpses never completely go out of style. But the episode keeps trying to pretend that all of this stuff is still one hundred percent relevant, and there\u2019s no acknowledgement that Nick is a man rapidly aging out of his time. The story ultimately hinges on Sam convincing Seymour (Willie Garson, who you may recognize from Sex And The City), Nick\u2019s nebbishy sidekick, to go into writing pulp detective novels. The problem being that the genre that gave us Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, had already peaked in the \u201830s. Folks were still writing mysteries in the \u201850s, of course, but Seymour\u2019s love of lingo was already well out of date.\u00a0<\/p>\n

All of which is a bit on the nitpicking side; a show that\u2019s already featured a young Buddy Holly learning that \u201cPeggy\u201d is a better word for a song then \u201cPiggy\u201d isn\u2019t really interested in realism. But it\u2019s the kind of nostalgia-glazed indulgence that can make the show difficult to take seriously as anything more than a relic of its own time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I praised \u201cCamikazi Kid<\/a>\u201d earlier this month for its authenticity, something \u201cPlay It Again\u201d could desperately use more of it. Instead, we get some enthusiastic cliches and a lot of emphasis on how hot Claudia Christian is. Christian, who plays the dead partner\u2019s wife, spends the entire episode in a low-cut \u201cmourning\u201d dress, and there\u2019s considerable time spent on trying to figure out if she\u2019s in on the murder, or if she\u2019s being honest when she tells Nick she loves him. Again, we have Sam falling head over heels for a new woman, despite Al\u2019s repeated advice to the contrary; we even get a brief falling out between the two, although it doesn\u2019t last very long.<\/p>\n

None of this really seems to matter much, not even Sam\u2019s realization that he\u2019s already read a version of the events he seems to be living through. The meta-angle is cute, but the show has too much of a commitment to its baseline level of \u201crealism\u201d for it to add up to much. The solution to the mystery isn\u2019t all that inspired either.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cPlay It Again\u201d isn\u2019t a chore to watch. Sam, and the show as a whole, remain charming throughout, and, if you can manage to forget just how many times this kind of homage has been done on television, it\u2019s possible to enjoy the affection the script has for its subject. It\u2019s just that affection can only carry us so far, and without a good story, the charm tends to end up spinning its wheels for the duration. The conflict here never feels like it matters much, not even when we learn that Nick originally died in the end. It\u2019s a mediocre entry that demonstrates the show still figuring out what it\u2019s capable of.<\/p>\n

Stray observations<\/p>\n

\u2022 There\u2019s a gag where Nick meets a nerdy kid who mistakes him for Humphrey Bogart; the kid is supposed to be Woody Allen, and the whole thing is a reference to one of Allen\u2019s early hits, Play It Again, Sam. Between this and Michael Jackson\u2019s appearance last week, it\u2019s funny how some things age in ways you don\u2019t expect.<\/p>\n

\u2022 I don\u2019t think the face in the mirror looks that much like Bogie. Tales From The Crypt had an episode where it used a CGI reflection to sell the joke, and it was awkward but more convincing than this one.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2022 It was fun seeing Claudia Christian here. I\u2019m currently reviewing Babylon 5 over on my Patreon<\/a>, and she makes a much different, and more interesting, presence on that show.<\/p>\n

\u2022 The jump we see at the end of the episode (Sam in a bubble bath realizing he\u2019s jumped into a woman\u2019s life) is from \u201cWhat Price Gloria?\u201d which would end up being the fourth, not first, episode of the next season.<\/p>\n

\"(Screenshot:<\/p>\n

(Screenshot: Quantum Leap)<\/p>\n

\u201cHoneymoon Express\u201d
Originally aired 9\/20\/1989
In which Sam takes the train to romance\u2026<\/p>\n

Oh hey, it\u2019s season two! Time for a tweaked opening credits sequence (goodbye strange splatters of color), an absence of Sam voiceover at the beginning, and even an attempt at new lore, or whatever you want to call it. At the same time, it\u2019s still the same show at heart\u2013Sam leaps into a man making out with a beautiful woman and almost immediately freaks out to learn that they\u2019re newlyweds and she\u2019s expecting him to, ulp, perform his husbandly duties. So to speak.<\/p>\n

I mentioned in the previous review that \u201cPlay It Again\u201d showed the writers straining, and \u201cHoneymoon\u201d helps to give some of an answer as to what makes scripting for the show such a challenge. As great as the premise is, it comes with some pretty strict caveats. Sam can only jump within his own timeline, and the things he accomplishes in each jump are rarely earth-shattering\u2013at least, they\u2019re rarely earth-shattering except for the people whose lives he touches directly.<\/p>\n

This all comes up while Al is testifying in front of a congressional committee to determine if the Quantum Leap program will continue to receive funding. It\u2019s not a cheap program (the cost is in the billions), and the various politicians seem skeptical as to the value of continuing the project, especially when Al flat out states that they no longer have control over Sam\u2019s leaps, if they ever did. While it\u2019s been alluded to before, this may be the first time that God\u2019s involvement is explicitly mentioned, without any ambiguity whatsoever. It\u2019s an honest observation, but not one that\u2019s likely to convince the government to hand over gobs of cash.<\/p>\n

All of this boils down to a new kind of conflict for the show. Up until this point, the dramatic stakes have focused on Sam and his adventures. His \u201cpresent\u201d has been referenced, even briefly seen in the pilot, but apart from Al occasionally having to get creative to help Sam, it\u2019s never really been something we\u2019re meant to focus on.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This makes dramatic sense, in that it ensures our primary identification point will always be Sam. Since he\u2019s the guy we spend the most time with, he\u2019s the guy we care about the most, and the closer we are to his perspective on things, the more we\u2019ll invest in the show. It\u2019s also a clear difference between this era of television and modern TV. I didn\u2019t see the\u00a0Quantum Leap\u00a0reboot<\/a>, but I\u2019d be shocked if it didn\u2019t spent more time in the \u201cpresent,\u201d and all the potential narrative complications that allows. It used to be that TV strove to make it possible for each individual episode to appeal to viewers who had no familiarity with the series as a whole; these days, it\u2019s much more about building fan loyalty through convoluted lore and backstories.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s a rant for another day. Suffice to say, Al\u2019s desperate attempts to get Sam to influence world events on a larger scale are an interesting diversion in an episode whose main story could probably use them. We\u2019ve moved past pastiche this time, and into something like an erotic thriller; Sam is Tom McBride (heh), a New York cop recently married to Diane (Alice Adair), the aforementioned beautiful woman who, in addition to being real into cuddling, is currently studying for the bar exam. Unfortunately, her psychotically jealous ex-husband, Roget (Mathieu Carriere) is also on board the train, and he\u2019ll do whatever it takes to get Diane back.<\/p>\n

As setups go, it\u2019s not bad, just comparatively straightforward. There\u2019s no real attempt at meta-humor here, which is kind of a relief. The train does make for a restricted setting, and Sam spends a lot of time agonizing over Diane\u2019s horniness, using her studies as an excuse to avoid sealing the deal (so to speak). It\u2019s an interesting angle, as the show hasn\u2019t really gotten into the ethical quandary of Sam being physically intimate with a person under false pretenses.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One of the ways\u00a0Quantum Leap tries to appeal to its audience is as both fantasy and wish fulfillment. As we\u2019ve discussed, Scott Bakula is a handsome, extremely charismatic dude, and that makes it easier to accept him macking on the many different women he\u2019s encountered in his various leaps. (Funny how all of the women tend to be equally hot\u2014maybe God is a bro?) But when it comes to actually having sex, it\u2019s a bit creepy to think about.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Which is probably why it\u2019s played largely for laughs here. Diane is horny, Sam is also horny (heh, Sam and Diane, cute), and his awkwardness is meant to be read as the fundamental sweetness of his character, a good boy in over his head. We\u2019re not supposed to get too caught up in the ethics of all of his, because if we did, it would be more difficult to enjoy the fantasy of it. We know Sam is a decent man, and he\u2019s probably hotter than her actual husband, so the whole setup looks fine to us at home; and it\u2019s not like the wife will ever realize what happened. (Well, this is an unusual case, but we\u2019ll get there in a moment.) As long as we know Sam isn\u2019t eagerly taking advantage of a stranger, we just sort of roll with the rest.<\/p>\n

The psychotic ex-husband makes for a creepy threat, and it\u2019s worth noting how often Sam\u2019s adventures put him in a position to help a woman deal with a problematic man. Here, it\u2019s saving Diane from her past; in \u201cCamikazi Kid,\u201d he had to save his \u201csister\u201d from her potential future. I\u2019m not sure I have enough for a thesis just yet, but it\u2019s worth keeping an eye on going forward. Who Sam helps and why is core to what the show is all about, and while the writers are more than willing to offer up the occasionally ridiculous small-stake situation (technically, the first leap of the season has Sam saving an old woman\u2019s cat), it\u2019s worth paying attention to the bigger stuff.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It all works out in the end, because of course it does. The big twist is that, in addition to saving Tom from Roget\u2019s threats, Sam also gives Diane the clarification she needs to pass her bar exam\u2014which, apparently, leads to her beating a certain politician running for re-election, which ultimately has her as the chair of the committee responsible for deciding the fate of the Quantum Leap program. The change happens while Al is in the room, and the idea that reality can shift and he\u2019s the only one who notices the difference raises a lot of questions. We\u2019ll have to wait and see if those questions are ever addressed.<\/p>\n

Stray observations<\/p>\n

\u2022 Forgot to mention that Sam is saying \u201cOh boy\u201d pretty regularly now, and it continues to give me joy.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Is this the first reference to Sam Beckett being similar to Samuel Beckett?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2022 It is very funny how they choose to make Alice Adair look \u201cold\u201d in her politician form. She reminded me of the schlubby news anchors in Batman after all the make-up gets Joker-fied.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2022 Alice is also the first person we\u2019ve seen who encountered Sam over the course of his travels. She doesn\u2019t make the connection during the committee meeting, which isn\u2019t a surprise, but given that Sam did tell her his real name, you wonder if she\u2019s going to wake up in the middle of the night some night in a cold sweat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This subscriber exclusive is available to all readers for a limited time\u2014if you want to keep leaping with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399001,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[156,111,139,69,437],"class_list":["post-399000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399000"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399000\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}